Strong Police Presence Yesterday at Part Dieu Shopping Center

Yesterday, on my way back from the factory tour of Renault and a washing-machine factory, I stopped over at Part-Dieu shopping center, right in front of the Part Dieu train station. As I got off, there were police stationed inside the subway terminal and then again near the exits. Going up to the ground floor I saw more police there again, and then others scattered throughout the commercial center.

It would not be unusual to find a few police waiting near the subway exits, but I found it strange that the police would be waiting here on a school day. Or perhaps I had gotten it all wrong: were the schools already on vacation? And why were there so many of them?

Some of the shops had shuttered up early, as of 5 p.m. Was it inventory season? Nothing seemed to make sense.

And then, today, on the top page of Yahoo.fr: police are on alert, one year after the November 2005 riots that spread across parts of the major cities throughout France. Incidents over the weekend between residents of the Paris suburbs and police have spooked the security forces and put them on high alert.

I am sure in the Part Dieu shopping center they were not bracing for major rioting or the like, but rather vandalism, breaking of shop windows, small fights between rival groups and so on.

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LINK:

Article from UK Guardian newspaper
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,,1929736,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1